NOVICE HALF ICE

Grande Prairie Minor Hockey has made the commitment to implementing a Half Ice program for all of our Novice age programs for the 2017 - 2018 season.

Recently Hockey Canada's Board of Directors approved that for the 2017 - 2018 and the 2018 -2019 seasons that it is "recommended" that all games at the Novice level be either cross-ice or half-ice games and that beginning in 2019 - 2020 it will become mandatory. Hockey Edmonton and others are also looking at adopting cross ice for the 2018 - 2019 season. Hockey BC, Sask Hockey and USA Hockey have already made the move to cross-ice programs of some sort for Novice age kids.

Small area games as well as half ice or cross ice programs have been gaining momentum over the last few years. There has been a mountain of research and study into the benefits of these programs at the younger levels on the development and enjoyment of our young players. Our Executive and former Technical Director had hours of discussion on the direction we would take for this season. As our Initiation Program has been half ice for a few years now, it was a natural progression.

Please spend a few minutes researching cross-ice hockey. Some sites with great information are: